Yesterday afternoon, Sky and I set off to see Up the Yangtze, a documentary entry in this year’s Seattle Film Festival. Alas, we underestimated the draw of a Chinese documentary on a sunny Memorial Day and there were no rush tickets available. We’d had some pizza on our way downtown, but we craved MORE in the way of junky food. We headed towards the Folk Life festival in hopes of finding some funnel cake or deep fried fair food. Instead we had some lukewarm mango lemonade which was actually pretty tasty.
Sita Sings the Blues
We ended up treking over to Queen Anne to catch Sita Sings the Blues. It was a sweet multilayered animated film based on the Hindu epic The Ramayana, set to bluesy 1920s singing. We should have gone to Indian food for dinner after the movie to keep things consistent but we had Thai instead and it was pretty bleh. What’s up with the ketchupy Pad Thai in this town?
The House is Black (Khaneh siah ast)
The House is Black (Khaneh siah ast) is a short film by Forugh Farrokhzad, a famous Iranian poet. It takes place in a leper colony. I watched it twice last week and again this weekend. It’s pretty amazing – rhythmic and strangely beautiful. The DVD we got from the library had some other shorts on it and they were interesting, too. I don’t remember what food we had in conjunction with this film – probably tea if it was late.
This weekend Jaime was here for a visit, and she talked me into renting The Descent (by Neil Marshall, who also wrote/directed a movie called “Dog Soldiers,” which I’ve put on hold). It was a good horror flick that had a nice mix of things to terrify, confound, and capture the imagination. The fact that I’ve always had a thing about caves/being trapped underground probably helped. We had wine with this movie, along with burgers (for Jaime and Sky) and a gardenburger (me).
We finally got around to watching Into the Wild, and I have to say it was an underwhelming experience. It did spark an interesting conversation between Sky and I, and later with others.* As a movie, though, I have to give it a thumbs down. Maybe I was just sick of white male bourgeoise after sitting through the IMAX presentation of Grand Canyon Adventures: River at Risk. Sky and I were gesturing and eye rolling so much during this movie that I’m surprised we didn’t get booted from our seats. The presentation seemed to send the message that only blonde rich people ought to care about the environment. Or so it seemed to me. I think during ‘Into the Wild’ I was chewing on my lips because I was too annoyed to eat, and during the IMAX movie we were enjoying complimentary Red Vines, popcorn, and a blueberry cocktail courtesy of an unamed bathroom fixture company.
If I want to watch nature stuff (and I always do), I prefer it in amazing, super fancy splendor, a la
Planet Earth, which we’ve been watching on and off for the last two weeks. While watching the Arctic/cold portions we enjoyed hot cocoa with marshmallows.
*Mostly this consisted of Sky defending taking off into the wild as a “universal” desire and me ranting about how it was a MALE desire since woman are historically tied down to babies and even if they can get away from babies they would end up diced up into little pieces if they took off w/ a backpack and smile. Feel free to discuss this in the comments, naturally.
4 Comments
Honestly, we parents do think that running away sounds just plain spiffy sometimes. It normally comes with sleep deprivation or a sick child.
For me the older I get the less I fell like I need to escape it all. I’m more comfortable with who I am and where I am and those around me.
Heh. I agree that it’s more a male desire than a female desire but I think it’s more to do with women having the common sense not to tromp off into the wilderness alone and unprepared.
Agreed, Baxter. One of my gripes with the movie (and the story, and the real life person) is if you love and admire Nature so much, why not respect it? I read a short essay by an Alaskan ranger in response to the movie/book and he talked about how easy it would have been had this guy just bothered to get a topo map. Aieee.
Into the Wild bugged the CRAP out of me, for many reasons, gender being one, privilege being another, Conradian sense of the wilderness as Other being a third, and on and on. Yick.